Fri, 08/15/2014 - 10:15am

Holly S. Edwards

If after running your taps for 5 or 10 minutes your water still looks like this, call Maine Water and they will help flush your pipes to clear the sediment caused by a storm-related water shutoff at its Rockport treatment plant early Thursday morning.

ROCKPORT — They may love the dirty water down on the Charles River in Boston, but up here in the Midcoast, not so much. Nearly a dozen residents of Camden, Rockland and Rockport called Maine Water in the past 18 hours to report brown, sediment-laden water coming through the taps.

Maine Water Director of Operations Rick Knowlton said that the issue is directly related to Thursday morning’s power outage and backup battery failure, which caused the treatment plant to shut down and eventually drain the water delivery pipes.

“We flushed the pipes most of the day yesterday through until about 11 p.m. last night, but we were not successful for everyone,” said Knowlton Friday morning. “We had about 10 calls from customers about dirty water still in their system.”

He said that in most cases, if people run their taps for 5 or 10 minutes the water will clear out and run clear again.

“If it doesn’t work for people, then they should call us and we will come and help them out,” said Knowlton.

But dirty water hanging around after the overnight storm Wednesday wasn’t the only thing Maine Water crews have had to contend this week. Knowlton said a main broke on Sea Street in Camden this morning, causing low pressure for customers up in the Timbercliff development off High Street.

“Nobody is out of water in that area now,” said Knowlton.

Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards can be reached at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com or 706-6655.